Jan/Feb tour is finished! What's next for the 3 C's??

Another tour come and gone! I think I say this every time I write on the blog, but man does time ever go fast! Yesterday was our final day of tour and we arrived to a nice crisp, cold, and frosty Calgary. But before I let you all in on what's happening next for Encore I will just do a quick re cap on our lives for the past 2 weeks!
We started off heading to Providence for the Missio Dei Conference. This was really eventful. Once we arrived we found out we forgot our promotional banner in the back in Calgary, AND the heat in our building was not working and it was minus 30ish! What a crazy start to Manitoba! Yet through everything we had quick solutions to our mad arrival to Winterpeg area. Cara quickly put together a Chalk Art showcasing VTI and we used this for the rest of our time in the area as our promotional banner, as for the cold night, blankets, blankets and more blankets! :) Here we were able to present and do some henna for the students too!

Following Providence was Steinbach. Then came Manitoba Missions Fest, here we met so many great people and met some new friends along the way too, and so many fellow VTIer's; even our booth buddies, Curt and Chryselle!


The next week that followed we went to so many great places, SBC for a chapel, LBE, West Park School, City Church, and Cara's home church ACC. And during this time Miss Cayla Schlamp turned the BIG 21(Feb 9th)!

We had the privilege of celebrating her birthday on three separate occasions, first with GILLIAN at Montana's! If you remember back in October Gillian is our former team mate who got into a big accident, well God is so good and she is WALKING! Praise the Lord!! It was so great to see her and celebrate Cayla's 21st year. Secondly a wonderful singing of Happy Birthday at SBC and thirdly wearing a crazy hat at LBE. We wish her a wonderful year ahead, God has great things for her to glorify HIS son and I can't wait to see how God will use my fellow team mate and sister in Christ for HIS glory. Exciting :) So with that being said Winnipeg flew by and we will miss seeing Cara's parents, Brian and Anne along Cayla and I's hosts the Guille's and their daugther Cheryl!

Our forth "C" for the past two weeks! And finally we concluded tour with a wonderful program at Millar College of the Bible.

Overall God has been so great over this whole tour. We met some amazing people, built great relationships, learnt a ton, and were challenged in many different areas! We really learnt that no matter what happens, HE is faithful and provides what we need to accomplish the work He has lain out for our team, and despite constant personality differences, technology failing, bad driving conditions, forgetting lines and objects and personal struggles we know that the Lord is hold us each up with His righteous right hand and ultimately He loves us! And along with that we know that all things work together for those who love God. We love God and He surely loves us! After all He is the definition of true love right? :)

Thanks again for sticking with us!! My hope for you is that you will constantly be reminded of the fact the God loves you with a crazy love that blows my mind every time I think about it! Nothing you do or say or think can ever make him not love you. He sent His son to die for us.. that's how much He loves us..Unconditionally! In return all He desires is for us to follow Him with all of our hearts and be set apart for Him. That people would see His love through our actions. And I myself and challenged with this everyday I get up, how can people see Christ in me today? What can I do to for others to see Christ in me? God sent His son for me! How crazy is that? Wow..

So as promised, tomorrow we have two programs, one early at Prairie Bible Institute and following at 7pm in the evening, Highland MB Church in Calgary. We then have a 5 day break followed by a week long tour to Edmonton from Feb 25th to March 6th. Then, touring, touring and more touring. Encore will be heading to Montana, all over Alberta and eventually out to Ontario in May.. so stay tuned, we will update you before we head out again. You can also find our tour schedule at www.vti.ca.
Before I close there is just three things I can think of that our team would ask prayer for;
1) For contacts for our upcoming tours
2) Unity as a team
3) Guidance for each of us in the future after Encore
Well, I think I covered most everything, hopefully looking at the length of the e-mail! Wowwy!!
Take Care and God Bless! :)
Until the Next Time!
Carmen Pahl